Photos at last...

In addition to my companion web site (listed in the sidebar), I have added a photo hosting site here. I've tried several, and I may yet go to another (I'm thinking Flickr Pro), but I've put it off long enough, so in an attempt to avoid perfectionism, here it is, and I'll improve it over time.

When you go to the main page, you will see a list of sub albums and the main (miscellaneous, uncategorized) photos. You can click on a sub album to see it's photos. If there is one sub album you like, you can bookmark it and go to it directly. The main link will always be in my sidebar for your convenience.

You can click the words "view album as slideshow" to see the photos displayed one at a time full screen. You can click on an individual image and it will resize to your browser window. Hovering the cursor over the photo will tell you the percentage of actual size (in the upper right corner). Clicking on the photo or the "view full size" will enlarge it. In the right upper corner outside the picture is a preview of the previous and next picture. You can step through them at your own pace.

For those interested in the details, scroll to the bottom of the photo and click "Show Exif Data". There are two dates, the file date, when I resized the file (not much use) and the date taken. Occasionally the date taken will be wrong (my son reset it a few times). Otherwise the speed, aperture, and flash data will display.

After you are done with a sub album you have to go back to the main album (JQ75) by clicking on the "JQ75" after the "Current album" on the top left.

Photos are arranged in the albums most recently added first. So you can always start from the first photo to see newly added photos.

Photos hosted on photobucket are limited to 1074 x 768, so are under 500K and load fast. I use Irfanview Thumbnail viewer and Batch command with customized settings to resize my 3 MP or 5 MP digital photos down to this size. This allows me to select a group of photos and with a few clicks resize them all. Irfanview is an excellent free tool.

All photos are taken by me or my son, except for the photos in the "Photos by Others" sub album. Someday I may go through my "maker made" (taken by me and processed and manipulated in my darkroom by me) photos and post them.

Some trivia - photos with the prefix DCP are from my older 3 MP camera, and yes I've taken well over 9000 photos with it (hey he's so cute). The DCAM prefix is from my newer duocam 5 MP still camera with DV video. If it has no other suffix, it likely wasn't edited (except for rotation and cropping). A suffix will indicate it was edited, most likely by PhotoShop Elements or a variety of PhotoShop plugins.

And as Jeffry Chaucer was portrayed in "A Knights Tale" as saying
And without further ado or guilding of the lily...





Main Album - Mom and Son

Miscellaneous or uncategorized photos.








Son Album - Son's drawing of Father and Son












Nature Album - Bug on Flower












Travel Album - Where my Lawyer lives










Tech Album - Telephone Punchdown Block

Photos of my "Tech Pride and Joy" Soyo Dragon 2 Platinum dual boot Linux/Win XP Praetorian system will be coming soon. It is still under construction (literally).






"Photos by Others" Album
New Horizons Deep Space Mission









The above photos are only a single photo from the album, each album contains from 2 to 10 photos at this time. More will be added. I hope you like them, I enjoyed taking them.

I screwed up...

I was in a good mood and then I opened my mail...

Literally, I can't go three days, without receiving some harassing piece of shit in the mail. If I add the phone, email, and my wife's shitty attitude and NO,NO,NO, then it's almost every fuckin day. When will it end? Not with the final decree, oh no, they decided not to decide, I can look forward to one or two more years of custody mediation, likely to reach a total of four years missing from my then 9 year old's life. Pretty bad fuckin percentage, don't you think. Well, not as bad as Louise, that's just a damn shame. But we're not in a contest, screwing a kid for any number of years is bad. Louise just recently started to Blog about her having zero visitation for six years. Absolutely incredible. Is that any better than some third world country where people disappear into political prisons? NO!

Wake up people! While the silent majority has been asleep at the wheel, this big ship called government has taken on way too much ballast and has veered way off course. (jqism)

I was thinking of shooting off an angry email to my lawyer, but he'll just have some whitewashed response. I'll get him on the phone, so I can provoke him into honesty. He's such a dunderhead, it's "opposing counsel" in writing and "fuckin cunt" on the phone. I know I can record him. I haven't reviewed the rules of evidence, but there are other ways to introduce things. I had the conversation with him, I heard it first hand, I recall it well because I reviewed the recording before Blogging about it, I documented that fact in the Blog, and I can personally testify to all those events as well as my personal recollection. And I do know the rules of evidence on direct testimony, it's the number one kind.

How did I go from shitty to OK to good? Well my friends helped the first part. Then, with some of the Blog banter, I thought I'd look over the two years of photos I've taken and post some. It was fun going through a few thousand shots with a thumbnail viewer and picking some out.

Photography has always been a serious hobby for me. And it goes so well with travel. I can remember as a child seeing my Uncle's darkroom, the safe lights, the trays, prints hanging on a line and drying. He was in military intelligence (didn't realize that until his death), a NASA photographer, and a photojournalist. He always lived his life to the fullest, right up to the minute of his massive heart attack in his mid 50s. I have a darkroom, capable of BW and color printing. But the computer is so much more efficient now days.

God, would it be nice to have him back on Earth at this time of my life.

So what did the mail lady deliver today? A letter from the biased Guardian. The one who put up hurdles, saw opposition throw in the land mines, cried "disgusting" to the judge to no avail. The one who is supposed to be gone. Either she didn't put up that much of a fight or the hired bitch BJ theory (See WTF) is true. Either way both of them are off my party invite list (makes lots of room for my Blogger Buddies, I'm trying desperately to maintain my sense of humor).

So what the hell does she want? What else - Money - from me, after her court ordered expiration, for failing to protect my child, for talking to my wife, for continuing to listen to her endless drivel. And the frosting on the cake, she communicated to the mediator. Why? Shouldn't he start with a clean slate? Wasn't that the negotiation. Yeah, but like every fuckin thing in this fucked up system, they reneged, they lied, they cheated.

The tragedy of this Domestic Relations System is that not only are you fucked, you get the bill from the fuckers. (jqism)

Just more shit to add to my case against these assholes.

The government pays for your execution in third world countries, but here, in the land of capitalism, you pay for your own. (jqism)

I'm OK

My recent post is about the most pissed I've ever been. My posts usually go through some drafts, sometimes I start & finish later, especially if it's a tough problem. That last post was one uninterrupted stream of raw emotion.

It's a level of frustration that when you go up against the system, it will do almost anything to preserve the status quo. The worst part is the lying, manipulation, back stabbing with a smile.

These people would call me nuts because I oppose their sick twisted manipulation with every fiber of my being. These sick bastards get off on screwing people, while maintaining a fake smile.

I needed to let that out. So I can breathe, think write, calmly, deliberately, powerfully, tactfully.

They may win now. But they will know I am on to them. And it won't be the last they've heard from me. They may be all smug now, confident that their system has destroyed another attacker. They've hurt me, bad. But I'll recover and I'll be back.

I meant what I said, the emotion is real. But I wanted to let you know, I'm OK. And I'll be even better.

WTF Happened Today?

I should never be surprised at the depravity of the court system. What a load of shit they handed me today.

But Damn it, I will not go down with a whimper. If it's my last fuckin act on Earth these fuckers will hear me. The more they fuck me, the more determined they make me. Determined that people will know their game, that they will be held accountable, that they will pay with the loss of their jobs.

Why not just let it go? Why not just swallow it like so many before me. One simple reason, if you aren't part of the solution, you are part of the problem. I won't be part of the problem. I won't solve it either, but if I can be a small part of it, my conscience will rest easy, and not before then.

I wanted this to work out better, I gave them every damn chance to do the right thing, and they've fucked me over at every opportunity.

To the lazy ass judge, you are elected, you won't be re-elected. I have the details of how you looked the other way and let this case get out of control. But the public's memory is short, you will receive my wrath just before the election.

To the hired bitch (my wife's lawyer), thanks for yet another delay, now I have time to fuck you but good.

To my hired testosterone deficient pussy lawyer, you want to show me who's boss? I'll show you, asshole. You want to roll over for the hired bitch? The senior partners will see you as a liability before this is over and cast you off rather than tarnish their good names. It's a big market here and you aren't keeping up.

Live by the sword, die by the sword. Your swords are the public record, and I will go on the public record. We have too many outlets and not enough news. I'll add to the supply.

WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF!

I have asked nicely too many times. As my tag line goes, I am reasonable. But pardon me, when I've asked six times and I pay for each time, I start to loose patience. I mean these are adults not children. But it's hard to tell, they act worse than any child most times and it pulls you down to their level. I'm not perfect. Pardon me for being pissed when people are fucking me with $5K screwups like their gumballs. In school I was busy with Advanced Placement Science and Math. That's why I don't have a college Graduation Year. I finished part way into my 4th year. I missed the Lying and Manipulation curriculum. And that has put me at a distinct disadvantage in life. It has not served me well.

Life is a balance and I have a low tolerance for bullshit. Oh, I can tolerate it in small doses over a moderate amount of time. If I couldn't I'd have to move to a desert island. It's a character flaw. I'm overly analytical. I ask, why? I recognize broken. I see alternatives. I don't understand status quo. What a boring and worthless existence that must be. I think outside the box. I live outside the fuckin box. And I like it that way. That's why I liked working at the University. I was in my element, I was "normal" there, I was with like minded people there.

How can people spend their days fuckin over people's lives and not jump off the first bridge they see? I understand that high pressure work (like hospice care) leaves you jaded and unattached to protect your own sanity. But when your patients start dropping like flies in a DDT cloud, then you need to get out of that line of work, take a break, or get in touch with the damage you're doing. Just how far are up their asses are these people inserting their heads that they see nothing? And isn't that a bit uncomfortable? Does money make it more comfortable? Is it the lubricate that allows the insertion of that big an object? Even as pin heads it must hurt.

And how might they explain that to their creator? I had no conscience? Seemed OK, I was making money? Everybody else was doing it? Maybe God has an express line for these people, this way - you sorry excuse for a human - straight to Hell. When a thug, steals, he's under no delusions that he is wrong. By what strange missing brain component do these people destroy lives daily and think they are better than a thug?

If I think back I remember the first bump & grab pick pocket (only once, all others were intercepted). I remember the first brand new car I bought and when it was stolen and stripped. There was shock, horror, violation, disbelief. But they pale in comparison, like a grain of sand on a beach, to what a complete and thorough job the divorce court can do to you in the misguided name of "justice". What a perversion. How delusional must these people be? How blind?

So what happened? WTF happened?

This wasn't a "Trial Date", there are only supposed to be 4 trial dates and since we've had 7 and had the 8th is scheduled for next week, this needed to be called something else. Shit by any other name is still shit.

It was a chance to bill another grand, why? Because the judge must have misplaced his gavel. And at this point he shouldn't bang it on wood, unless you believe the lawyers heads are really wood. That would explain a lot.

SGDD - Yep, the bitch reneged on more verbal promises, promises she made to the judge, promises the judge "recommended". Damn she must give a mean BJ for him to go out on that limb. My bad, I suggested she gives BJs. Well at least I didn't call her a "fuckin cunt" like my lawyer did. All words, no balls. Pussy.

And the judge let her. The Guardian fees (over $10,000) were supposed to be split 50/50. Now they're saying no they won't, I get them. This is the Guardian hired to ensure my son had access to both parents. This is the Guardian that put together a phony shared parenting plan with tons of hurdles for me to jump through to get even the "absentee" father visitation schedule (2 weekends and a Wed). After the hired bitch finished bastardizing that agreement, and then threatened to withhold Christmas visitation for the second year in a row, that same Guardian pleaded with the judge on my behalf (she didn't like me at all since I fired her friend, of course at the time I didn't know how incestuous the legal community is). Did the judge take the Guardian's, supposedly independent (if you over look that she had a conflict of interest being a personal friend of the fired 2nd lawyer) recommendation. No he took the hired bitches. Why? License to "fuck" according to my well compensated lawyer.

Some other fuckin thing, can't remember now, cuz I'm too fuckin tired, it's too fuckin late, I've been up too many fuckin hours.

I have been verbally promised that when my work schedule goes to M-F, I won't loose any visitation (which is now M,T,W), no long drawn out delays, bang, a new schedule, in the best interest of the child of course. Come on, for the first time? What kind of asshole do you take me for. I'm pissed, very frustrated, but I'm not nuts. And I'd have to be to believe the people who have done nothing but lie, steal, and renege on every damn word out of their mouths. The same people who denied me full day summer access two years (going on three now), and tried to cheat me out of Christmas with my son 2 years in a row. These assholes are going to do something right. Pulease, sell that shit elsewhere, I'm not buying.

Oh yeah, and they delayed (opposition request) the 8th and supposedly last (yeah fat chance) Trial Date another week, I guess that's so we can celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary.

How did she get away with all this bullshit, besides the usual ass kissing and possible BJ? A neat game of deflection, it is so evil, it needs it's own post. Of course you have to be blind not to see it, especially if as her rep goes, it's repeated regularly, but then justice is blind; and deaf and dumb too. And that explains a lot.

Too bad the public is blind, deaf, and dumb to these injustices masquerading under the banner of "justice". Well, I won't be.

Can you tell?

Am I hiding it well? Could I be just a little more fed up with all this bullshit? I swear one more fuckin straw, one more, and I remove the media restriction on the legal notices and email this URL to 4 print media outlets, 4 video media outlets, 2 bar associations, and the state supreme court with names, and docket number. Somebody help me take the emotion out.

Go ahead assholes, make my fuckin day. And I'll make yours, you pompous good-for-shit parasites.

Money is the lubricate that allows someone to insert their heads so far up their asses they can't see. (jqism)

Justice is blind and that explains a lot. (jqism)

Status: Rough Draft - Last Update 04/25/07 02:30 am

Comparative Guilt

While everyone is condemning Baldwin on his outburst and trying to determine his just punishment, a few important points are lost.

• His outburst was hurtful to his child
• The release of this private recording to the media (likely by the "innocent, protective" mother) allows all of the child's friends and acquaintances in on this outburst, so she can be teased, taunted, embarrassed and uncomfortable.
  

• Is the public release of this any less hurtful than the original outburst?
• Given that the mother was playing "denial of visitation" games, is that any less hurtful than the outburst?
• How much did these games actually contribute to over even cause the outburst?

So who else is at fault? And why don't we hear more about it?

Could this be prevented? Hell yes! The signs of these games are crystal clear to anyone with half a brain. But the court, hiding behind their slogan, "in the best interest of the child", refuses to take action. Anyone found playing these games, when no real evidence of harm is available, should be ordered to mental health treatment and loose the rights to make custody decisions. Anyone found making false accusations to withhold visitation should prosecuted for purgery and obstruction of justice.

These two changes would dramatically reduce this game, its detrimental impact on all family members, and the court back log. It might also impact the money spent on lawyers and that is the only reason it is not in place now. Greedy bastard lawyers would rather hurt your kids.

It's enough to drive someone crazy...

Meg has written an an excellent post about Alec Baldwin's outburst to his child. No one, including me, likes to see such an outburst against a child, but there are some contributory factors that must be understood. Baldwin has been fighting for his daughter for 6 years, you can bet he feels more guilt then anyone could lay on him. Someone described it very well, it builds up like a volcano.

You can read it here:

Any female who is being honest...

I caught part of this news because of Meg's post, and I must compliment Meg on her understanding of a very poorly understood problem. I would say that no one, and I mean no one, who has not experienced this first hand could possibly understand the anger and frustration that PAS and child custody games can have on someone. I am surprised how well Meg has understood this problem. As bad as my situation is, at least my son is not being turned against me.

My wife insists she wants me to have a relationship with my son. She has been very convincing to the court who parrot what she says followed by a big “But”, It amazes me how gullible the court is in such a transparent control play.

My wife is using my son as leverage against me in court. She's preventing him from seeing me to increase pressure on me, to gain concessions from me, to get vengeance on me, and to be in control. She, being overprotective, does criticize my parenting to the court to gain support for the lower than minimum visitation, that I now have.

The courts and the media take things out of context, overreact and in a misguided effort to protect the child they in fact aid in the abuse of the child. I have nearly been bankrupted in 2 years of child custody litigation. I have attempted to shorten the case in every way possible, but an abusive lawyer is extending the case. When an angry wife makes an accusation, it is assumed true, regardless of how outrageous and the Father's rights are taken away until he can prove himself innocent.

As any reader of my Blog knows, this takes a tremendous toll, especially over time. For the first six months, I was able to handle this just fine. After the first last-minute Christmas visitation denial attempt it started to get to me. My Blog starts at the 18th month so you see things after they have had plenty of time to build up.

In Baldwin's case, with more money, come more games. He has been screwed with for 6 years. But it's really not just him, it's his daughter. It is important that when talking of these child custody games, the child always looses. Baldwin's words sound terrible, inexcusable, impossible to understand.

That's because, until you've had the court interfere with your relationship to your child thanks to your ex, you can not understand the level of anger and frustration. I have been in my share of battles, and I can take plenty. But to see my son cowering behind me screaming and crying, pleading and begging to stay just a little longer, while his mother tries to tug him away, is something that pushes your emotions far beyond the worst adult argument you can think of. Despite that I remained as outwardly calm as possible (although inwardly furious) as I asked my wife if I could have 5 or 10 minutes to calm him down and bring him to her apartment. NO NO NO! She needs to be in control, best interest of my son be damned. Would 10 minutes matter, to her it would mean loss of control. To my son, his frustration could have been calmed down. Which is more important?

I put his interests first, she puts her desires first. We're different.

When my son repeatedly asks to see me and the biased Guardian refuses to grant that request. Then after all the hurdles the Guardian put up, the opposition extorts me to sign an agreement with even more restrictions or loose Christmas visitation. When the bias Guardian saw the extra restrictions she told the judge that it was disgusting, what did the judge do? Nothing! So the judge took the adversarial oppositions view rather than the mother biased Guardian (who's supposed to consider mother/father/child). So if the judge was going to use the most restrictive visitation recommended by my wife's lawyer, why was a (supposedly unbiased) Guardian appointed? More fees?

I understand Baldwin's phone frustration, because of my very limited visitation, I too have an order granting me phone access. My wife always puts it on speaker phone, listens in, and on occasion has cut our call short. My son is older now and occasionally has been so frustrated that he asked her to let him talk to his father privately. I have to adjust my schedule in order to take advantage of the phone contact and sometimes she doesn't allow it. After changing my schedule or creating quite an inconvenience, I'm denied my court ordered right.

I remember one of my co-workers commenting when I worked overtime and couldn't get home before the scheduled call. So there I was sitting outside the data center with my phone reading "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" to my son. He stopped and marveled at my perseverance in maintaining a relationship with my son, despite the restrictions. He asked me, how is it that they don't understand how much you love your son and how terribly wrong this restricted visitation is?

Compared to Baldwin, I'm lucky, my relationship with my son is undamaged despite my wife and the court using him as a pawn in their hurtful, deceitful game that they justify "in the best interest of the child". But I do understand his frustration, mine is directed at the court, the officers of the court and the system, rather than my child. I am criticized for my justified frustration. I was ejected from judges chambers for stating that using my son as leverage was child abuse. The truth hurts.

These are just words. Meg has also written good words. But words are so limited in their ability to explain something so complex.

What Baldwin said was wrong, and no one is more pained then he is that things have gotten so bad. But something caused it, and that is wrong, and that's what we should be talking about.

If you haven't lived it, you will have difficulty understanding it and you should thank God for that.

Ball's in his court

I called my lawyer and I made some points crystal clear. He tried to wiggle. He tried to play dumb. He tried to play helpless. He tried to pretend I'm not getting screwed. I wouldn't let him.

My points:

• You have exceeded your authority several times, you have also caused delays.
  
• Interpreting the funds release court order as restrictive when I was there in the presence of opposition counsel and she had no objection is outside the scope of your authority.
• I am suffering damages as a result of your exceeding your authority, and intend to recover damages.
• You don't need to ask the judge if it's OK to disagree with opposition, you need to sell it. Sell it convincingly, forcefully. As you are duty bound as my advocate.
  
• You aren't stupid or without perception, these are not valid excuses.
• Attempts and requests are of no value, you are being judged on results and they are poor.
• I must have the verbal understanding of Parenting Plan written as an addendum and included in the court order. The idea that this will be the first verbal agreement honored is foolish.

The ball is in his court, deliver results. I'm easy to please.

You expect payment, I expect results, not games.

I'm changing the game rules, keep up.

Lawyers and the Games They Play

At your expense

Let me focus on the worst of all lawyers, the traditional adversarial divorce lawyer. That is such an overly kind name for the terrible con job they do.

Apparently my wife's lawyer plays several games and in combination she has built a nice career out of it:

• Control clients by keeping them in the dark so they can be dependent on her
• Intimidation of her clients, adversaries, and staff
• Forcefully lie in chambers, hoping opponent won't have confidence to object
  
• Don't get pined down, keep the water muddy
  
• Fain ignorance when caught lying
• Kiss ass to the judge

I refer to this as dinosaur law, it's old school and should be extinct. It is not customer service centric. It's an occupational hazard and many lawyers may exhibit these traits to one extent or another. It looks like she's slick, but its just different parts of the same tool, different personalities for different audiences, but all part of a single dinosaur style, as she is known as a one trick pony.

Control

The lawyer works for you, it is your life, and if you have children this will affect you for at least a decade, in either case it will affect your pension, so it is easy to argue that you will live with the divorce decree until "death due you part". The client should control or manage the case since they will live with the consequences.

Old school lawyers want to run the show, they want to do what's easy, what will keep them friends with their fellow lawyers and judges. They want to make a lot of money by overbooking clients. They think a lot of themselves and feel that they don't need any input from the client.

Intimidation

Lawyer's main method of achieving control is by intimidation. They will intimidate a client, by threatening to quit or that you should find a new lawyer and start over, they'll threaten that your outcome will be worse if you try to push for your goals and they'll act indignant like you've insulted them by merely asking a question.

They may also practice various intimidation tactics on the opposition, some of it to stir up your emotion, some of it to cause you to believe they are "fighting" for you.

Lie

One would think that lawyers would have to be truthful. But like one of our president's practiced, there is a lot of room for interpretation and molding. Lawyer's words are technically never considered evidence, only sworn testimony is evidence. In fact a sworn affidavit, is "second class" evidence for the convenience of the court, in-person testimony is the evidence the court seeks.

Keep the Water Muddy

When a lawyer keeps things undefined and unclear, then there is no place to make progress from. They can simply say no and you don't know what they are looking for or how to pin them down. A good negotiator will pin the opposition down. Two lawyers displaying this attribute will cause the case to drift aimlessly like a sail boat in the ocean, with no heading, never to reach it's destination.

A good judge will detect this drifting and push the parties to get specific and move towards a resolution. That is the goal of pre-trials, review local court rules governing pre-trial goals to see what your lawyers and judge should be doing.

A good lawyer will push hard for the opposition to define their needs, goals, and positions, not just their desires. By understanding this in broad terms they can offer alternatives that may be acceptable to both parties, thus bringing the conflict to satisfactory conclusion.

Play Dumb

As a small child, you may have "played dumb" when caught doing something wrong. It worked then and it works in many cases in court too, if done convincingly. It can be dangerous unless you have the respect of the court. The maxim, "Ignorance is no excuse" can bring sanctions down on the inexperienced practitioner.

Kiss Ass

Kissing ass is a manipulation technique that the lawyer can use on a variety of people. The judge will be the number one ass target. If he's unhappy, the lawyer is in trouble. So usually all lawyers and officers of the court (guardians, evaluators, experts, bailiffs) will be puckered up. Sometimes the opposition is the kissing target. My lawyer, a rookie in the mediation business, believes in kissing opposition ass. His senior partner, with more developed skills, pushes the opponent to define their goal, their position, and their objection, by obtaining that information he can corner them by offering a compromise or alternative that meets their definition.

The ass target receives the benefit of having their ego stroked (a strong need in the legal profession to overcome the universal hatred of their profession). This temporarily disables them, so they are unable to perform their duties.

The combination of all these habits ensures the lawyer will maximize fees and the client will maximize aggravation, health problems, etc. This is in nether parties interest and delays or prevents the civil relationship needed to co-parent any children.

So why do lawyer's practice this form of draconian law? MONEY!

I told her so....

It wasn't in my best interest, but I warned my wife that the lawyers were acting in collusion and we'd both get screwed, she reacted with her characteristic disbelief, quite sure she knows and controls everything.

Well, I've done what I can do without being stupid. If she wants to believe a total asshole stranger rather than me, then she'll see who's right later. And I can tell her "I told you so".

I will continue action against all members of the court for anything that hurts my son or I, but if it hurts her and not my son, well she chose the path, tough luck.

The price she'll pay for not actively managing her lawyer will be that her lawyer, when faced with a decision on who to protect - herself or her client, will choose to screw her client, my wife.

I helped my wife by getting her legal fees reduced because that would effect my son. But her lawyer's greed is causing her to suggest things in her own (lawyers) interest that are also in my interest and because its one pie, go ahead and screw my wife, rather than me.

Maybe it will teach her a lesson. Maybe it won't. I don't care, she wants to be free and that includes free of my advice. So, I'll oblige. But I have made a huge commitment in actively managing my case and she hasn't. I am under no obligation to argue with the opponent party (my wife) to convince her that her own lawyer is selling her short. I won't say exactly how until it's over with, in case she's seeing this, but you'll be shocked. It's simple, it would hurt her or me, so there isn't a way for my son to benefit either way.

Leave the case to your lawyer and you will be screwed. (jqism)

SGDD Update 1

Opposition counsel is stonewalling the settlement agreement she verbally approved with the judge. I told my lawyer if it wasn't approved this week, I won't show for Trial Date # 8 on May 1. Yesterday in court my lawyer requested the judge to order the opposition to respond, The judge set a lawyer's conference (hearing without parties present) next Monday, May 23 (more billable hours).

This is my opportunity to file for appearance as co-counsel, to prevent the collusion between the lawyers to the detriment of the parties. I haven't decided whether to be nice or not.

If I want to be nice I'll prepare two exhibits for the Motion of Appearance. Exhibit A will state justification in a non-accusatory way. Exhibit B, should I receive resistance to the idea, will be brutal and difficult to deny. It will point out on public record the multi thousand dollar mistakes. I could use this as leverage to blackmail my lawyer into supporting me as co-counsel. Just the way he's blackmailing me into a questionable settlement by locking up funds that were to be released to me. This is causing me to receive penalties which opposition counsel has objected to, now that I released the higher child support amount, opposition counsel is happy and I may be able to use her against my own counsel who is trying to look good to his boss' by protecting receivables. I smile inside with the idea that I could play the lawyers against each other to my benefit.

At the very least I will show up at the lawyers conference uninvited to let them know they are being watched.

I pursued a jurisdictional challenge today, but practically it's not looking good. Not enough time to pull off several important prereq's. I need to review the results of the meeting and do some more research. But if the opposition causes more delays, as she is prone to do, then she'll give me that opportunity.

Hacking Source Identified

My 3rd party firewall has identified the method and source of the hacking attack I received. I have coded new rules to provide a permanent and automatic block to this attack. As I said in my previous post, my critical data is brought offline pre-boot.

The IP address was mapped to Northern Australia.

I have also installed a scripted counter-measure to flood this IP address with a DoS (Denial of Service) attack. Any further attempts to contact my IP address will be greeted with this attack. Because of the time zone difference, it would be easy to dedicate most of my bandwidth to this attack if needed. Further provocation will be greeted by inviting other servers to join in a DDoS (Distributed DoS) attack.

The attack may be coincidential or some bored "script kiddie", but like I've said, no one gets to use the "ignorance defense" with me. So if it is a reader, here's your warning. If you're not, my first DoS will contain an unambitious message.

SGDD – Same Game Different Day

So everything was supposed to be completed on Big Day # 7, but the judge had a vacation to get to. I mean all this watching and no case management can make a guy tired and in need of a undeserved vacation. So things were continued to Big Trial Day # 8 on May 1st. Nice date, one day before our 15th wedding anniversary.

But not to worry, it was all settled, it's just a formality, a 2 min hearing. He'll don his rob, ask our names, ask if we agree and pronounce us divorced. So says my lying lawyer. Well why was the hearing scheduled 30 minutes early like the last marathon session and for the full court day of 6 hours and 30 minutes which the judge will expand at his discretion for another 8 or so hours?

And as for the hired bitch, yup, playing games as usual. She has not approved the settlement agreement that is exactly what was agreed to with the judge. In order to appease her, my lawyer refused to make any changes including committing me to return property that already has been returned. This puts me at risk because she can say, well the agreement says to return this so you are in contempt of court. Would the hired bitch be so cold? Yep, she filed contempt charges for a $45 arrearage that I was not even notified of yet.

So why hasn't she responded yet? Why did the judge schedule so much time? "Oh, no reason", says my lawyer. Would this be too skeptical or could it be that the judge knows she will pull a last minute stunt, which he will “entertain” as he has the last 3 Trial Dates? Well, I'd love to be wrong, but this has been so consistently abusive that I will remain skeptical. To do otherwise would be naive. And in two years, I could be called anything but naive of the court system.

A short time will prove it either way. If I'm wrong, then only this phase will be over or I'll be right and it will be SGDD and it will continue on. Reminds me of a related acronym - SSDD – Same Shit. Well I have a surprising new game in mind. Throw something into to the mix, shake it up a little. At least if I have to endure more shit, it might as well have some variety.

Note: I have a large "Games Lawyers Play" post in draft I hope to complete soon.

Special message to my brother-in-laws

I hope you aren't reading this...

If you are, then you are in violation of my terms and conditions for access to this Blog. You are subject to prosecution and recovery for damages. Not criminal, although my FBI contacts are still in my Palm, civil, small claims, just enough to hurt, no big burden of proof.

I like you guys, we've gotten along fine. You know your family issues, you know your sister. You know she can dish shit out like her old man. You know she can be a spoiled brat.

I'm sure you got the exaggerated version of my faults, just remember, she lived pretty comfortably while she was with me. So if it's you guys messing with me. Stop it. Move on.

If it's that odd address from China or Finland showing up in my stats, same for you. But hey if you are actually legit readers, I'd like to hear from you. My worldwide English readers have a lot in common, I'd be so curious how these issues apply in your countries.

And FYI, My most critical data was never exposed, not even for a second. My next step will be to lock all disks out, not with Microsoft crappy controls, pre-boot and physically offline. My backup process was in place since day one, it's standalone to offline media. Just like yours, older brother-in-law.

So whoever seems to be curious to suck down my data, you will only see a bare bones, XP system, running in a captive account (no Admin), and no good data. Just give me your IP and we can both save trouble, all FTP the whole damn thing to you, it'll be worthless. In a few days this should be locked down so tight you shouldn't even be able to detect me online.

But if you persist and show up in my logs, be perpared for some strong scripted counterattacks.

Hack Attack

Weak moment, bad mistake...

I tested my online connection on a freshly installed operating system before navigating all the hoops needed for a fully secure system. If you use XP Service Pack 1 (as I did) the firewall is disabled by default. A friend of mine had his system like that for months after installing a high speed broadband connection. Service Pack 2 enables it by default.

But understand The Microsoft Corporation are Security Morons. (jqism)

Even the firewall in Service Pack 2 is still an inbound only firewall. If you click on, download something, whatever, and it can run. There is unlimited outbound access, ie, send your data to the hacker.

I was online for only minutes before the attacks started coming in. I didn't fall for any of the "click here to fix your registry scams", but I did notice something odd. A glowing send light, while I was doing nothing. Then as I started to visit sites, why was the response so slow? A ten to one ratio of bytes sent vs received. That is either a tremendously noisy line (possible, I moved my connections quickly) or an aggressive attack.

So my friends, especially Mac1975, do not underestimate security. And Mac, my offer stands, if AK is using your PC, I'll help you secure it. No lectures, no preaching, no "I told you so", just help, in case. OK?

---

Status Update 04/16/07

I already mentioned the one way limitation of Microsoft's firewall. Well I installed a third party full strength bi-directional firewall and even with its default settings (which they have researched in depth and set very carefully), it ended the sending of data out and dramatically improved response time. Vista claims improved security, but you may have seen Apple's advertisements on repeatedly interrupting you with "cancel or allow". The third party firewall, available now for XP, was much more intelligent and doesn't bury you in interruptions.

---

Status Update 04/18/07

• Hacking Source Identified
• Email access available (although more cumbersome still)
• Some more scans and settings.
• Then I'll reconnect my mail databases to POP3 for full service...

Temporary Email In Box

If you have a comment to a specific post, go head and leave it there.

If you have a general comment and you don't mind it being public, then you can consider this post to be my temporary email In Box.

As an in between step, you can ask me to delete the comment after I have read it.

If you'd rather send it by private email, I will eventually get it (hopefully soon), I just don't know when yet. I'll keep this and the previous post updated as to my online status.

Thanks for your patience...

---

Update 04/18/07

• POP3 realtime email notification still offline.
• Access to all archive email databases and address books through POP3 (Thunderbird)
• Access to all email accounts via Web Mail (slower than POP3, but I'll get it) is online

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Update 04/19/07

• POP3 email notification restored
• All email databases restored and reconnected

Yikes, I'm Offline

and Dumberer ?

Title reference is not to my son, who I love, but to the sequence of events in my significantly degraded (excuse for a) life.

My son accidentally knocked over my laptop and it hit the floor on the power connector, apparently jarring it bad enough that I can't get it to power on again. I automatically yelled (rare) "GO TO YOUR ROOM NOW" ! His own bedroom, that he has only been allowed to use once in 2 years. It was an accident, but careless, he was warned to settle down several times just prior to running into the laptop. My wife commented later, it should have been somewhere safer, so he couldn't knock it over. True, but he has his own account on the laptop with KidPix, I Spy, etc.

I took a couple of deep breathes (Leigh's advice), listened to see if he was playing, then opened his door, and saw him sitting quietly in his chair crying. Surely not the way either of us wanted to spend our limited time together. The next day, he just sat quietly and read one of my old comic books he found in the attic, not his usual self at all.

The whole divorce case is on that laptop, the documents are backed up from a few weeks ago, but so much is happening in the last month, that missing the most current, audited spreadsheets and settlement markup comparisons (that I needed to find my own lawyers errors) is a serious missing piece. Not to mention all the software, productivity tools, settings, etc. that I've come to live with and expect (email databases etc.).

So I take out the hard drive, connect it to my desktop, load recovery tools, boot managers, sync & compare tools. I've done this before so it wasn't total panic, but when it's personal, like this divorce case, it does increase the level of stress.

Good news, the disk is fine. Bad news, I marked my logon profile as private and even though I have the same logon profile on the desktop and it has the highest admin privileges, it still refused access. This is a new twist with XP (didn't run into this in my previous forays of disk recovery too many times for me to count).

So maybe I should just alternate boot the whole drive? Well that would have worked before Microsoft's Activation Process which keeps American's honest, but is easily circumvented overseas. I had half a mind to logon onto a cracker site and get a bogus activation code. I paid for two copies of XP and now I have only one machine and can't run the 2nd copy even if I buy a new machine, because it won't activate on anything other than my 2 year old laptop which isn't sold anymore.

So I do some research on why I can't access all the data from an Admin account. Thanks Microsoft for your consistency. Its meant to stop someone from stealing your hard drive and getting the info. But Microsoft documents in their knowledgebase exactly how to reclaim ownership of someone else's drive, even if marked Admin and Private. Of course the process is a bit of a pain in the ass and the average PC user would be stumped, but I tried it and it worked fine.

So now I have an entire image of the hard drive on my desktop, moved over the data, reinstalled some software, but now the fun part. Reconnecting settings, email data bases, encrypted password files, what a pain in the ass.

Microsoft - people ready. Yeah Lawyers are helpful too. (jqism)
What a load of shit.

So, after getting the most critical pieces working, I try logging on from my desktop and I get a connection refusal from any secure site, including all the financial sites I need to access daily for my overcomplicated divorce life and Blogger logon. The ISP support gave me the run around when they couldn't find the problem. Of course that the person barely spoke English, the voice connection apparently poor from traveling across the globe, didn't help either.

After many hours across three days, finally getting to the US head quarters technicians (an honor not granted to customers, unless they know how the inner workings of an offshored support structure work) they finally gave up, don't know why. It could have been quicker, had their support people been able to keep up with me. Of course computers have been my 30 year career, I was talking to people who just do this as a job.

That's one tiny semantic difference that has one gigantic implication. (jqism, with apologies to Neil Armstrong)

Another sign of the times, people outlive careers, they just have a string of jobs. Literally! The computer science / mainframe computing career I started in 30 years ago is nearly extinct. The industry joke is, looking for a job, you'll have better luck in the obituaries than the classifieds.

So I'm off to my own devices. The ultimate proof, install and dual boot a bare bones OS (Operating System) and attempt to connect to a secure site. If successful, run audit, compare, and sync to find the differences, then research them to find the cause. OK, gather the stuff, where the hell is my master OEM copy of Windows XP Home Edition? Crap, I can't do it. More PITA (pain in the ass)!

First I try Windows (NT) 2000 because it does not require activation, Then I try to customize the connection and remember this is based on Windows 95 technology, almost as old as our dead marriage, and equally distant in my memory, After fooling around trying to get this old OS to work, I gave up on it. OK, I have my Windows XP Pro OEM master disk, but that activation code goes with another machine. Loophole, I can run it for 30 days, under the radar, without activating it. I install it, bypass the many automatic attempts Microsoft has put in there to confound those who know what they're doing, and boot it, it works!

Great, now I get to do the reconnection crap all over again. And it's inconclusive because it is a different OS. At least it gives me 30 days to find that damn disk that goes with this machine. Rather than screwing around with this same activation process for Office, I just installed Open Office in Microsoft compatibility mode.

A lot of stuff in the works, wish I could tell you about it all.

Mediocrity is King, Excellence is old fashioned. (jqism)

What a frustrating, distraction of a week!

Online Status: Online to Web Sat 04/14 BUT
Web status update: Heavy hacker attacks on 4/15, making web use damn near impossible
Offline to Web Development Tools for my personal web spaces
Offline to all email

Entering a New Phase

I have implied the subject of this post before, but I want to draw special intention to it.

Lawyers are always at some level of conflict with their clients, both as "officer's of the court" with the goal of settling the case, and as greedy professionals with their own personal interests to protect.

The most insidious implementation of the latter conflict of interest, I'd call a "conspiracy of greed to milk a case for fees". It takes both lawyers' and the judge's active or passive actions to fully play this "game".

I am struggling with this situation now, because if the lawyers have their way, they will seize their inflated fees from my assets as a condition of the final decree and by doing that cause a forced liquidation of my assets that will be very unfavorable to me. It will force me to stiff my creditors or sell my house, which they are very willing to say they don't care about as long as they get the fees they want.

Now if I received legitimate service, I would feel an obligation, but when a $5,000 divorce turns into a $100,000 debacle, I justifiably feel robbed, and that it happened inside an austere pretentious landmark courthouse does nothing to make it better, quite the contrary, it feels so much worse.

For 30 years of my adult life, I have never stiffed a creditor and enjoyed an excellent credit rating. Over the last two years, this has taken a sharp nose dive, and it sickens me. I mean that quite literally. As William said "It is not in my nature" to give up (or stiff creditors).
I will do all I can to do neither.

And be forewarned, I consider a creditor to be one who has provided a service of value and in case you can't read between the lines that excludes greedy manipulative lawyers.

I have a lot more to say on this topic, but my computer problems are delaying it.

Dumb and Dumber

Just when I thought I had seen all the dumbest things, along comes something even dumber.

We were going through the revisions suggested by the judge in the separation agreement. The amounts are from their legal pads transcribed to Excel. In addition to all the errors I mentioned previously, he made a new one today. While copying the numbers from the spreadsheet and inserting them into the separation agreement, he forgot one.

We were nearly done with a 45 minute review and he finally noticed it was missing. Of course it was a glaring error, it meant that after some equalizing property transfers, I owed my wife nothing. He forgot her separate property contribution to the house, $12K that I owed her.

I honestly think that if he hadn't caught it, my wife's lawyer, who is even worse at math, wouldn't have caught it either, she just wants to cut and run.

Honest mistake ? No stupid mistake !

Spreadsheets were meant to prevent errors and to group common items. The first rule of accounting is no commingling of funds. There is a reason why they are so anal about that, it makes it easy to screw up. He had a column for separate property, fine, but he did not distinguish between separate property owed vs already in that person's procession. The $12K contribution was owed. Columns on a spreadsheet are cheap. If he had not commingled owed vs controlled the $12K would stick right out. You simply tally all owed separate property into the final totals. He didn't. He was remembering to copy it.

How did I catch it? Simple, I got a copy of his .xls file and used that as input, then made a new sheet with formulas from his input. As he changed his "non-formula" sheet, my sheet continued to calculate. I also use the auditing toolbar to trace formulas to ensure they are including all relevant input.

My 2nd grade son is using Excel in school, producing bar and pie charts. Why can't someone charging $300 / hour do that?

But here's the best part, I couldn't help myself, after he found his error, I said, "I'm sorry I have accepted the agreement as you presented, I don't agree with that change." I was being somewhat sarcastic and I wanted him to understand the gravity of the error. Then I said, "In lieu of some of your fees, I'd be happy to come to your office and provide some useful instruction and templates to avoid this error in the future."

His reaction, he was livid. You'd think I insulted his momma. I quickly responded, "No, that is a sincere offer, you have a need, I have a skill, it makes sense." Now some could view this as me be a smart ass (OK, just a little). But, hey, I worked in the central data processing center for a University, supporting professors and their curriculum for 19 years and I also developed and taught computer classes for that University for another 10 years. So it's not like I couldn't really be of value.

He, as many others have, underestimates the consequences of a bad spreadsheet. It has sunk companies from a financial perspective and even if caught in time it can do terrible PR damage.

Lawyers really do fall into two categories - Dumb and Dumber.

Authors Note: Quotes have not been verified as verbatim from recording.

There's Big Bucks in Checking Your Lawyers Work

You pay lawyers big bucks to take care of stuff. You expect them to get it right. Well, lower your expectations or get burned.

How's this for a few week's work?

• My wife's legal bill cut in half, saving her $30,000.
• My portion of my wife's bill reduced from $30,000 to $10,000.
• My portion of my wife's bill will be tax deductible.
• Found and corrected over $1o,000 in arithmetic errors in settlement in my favor.

Wishful thinking? Nope, they are in the latest settlement agreement.

The work of my lawyer? Well through his vocal chords, but he had lots of help from me. He had given up on this long ago.

How could I get her fees cut in half. Ever been to one of those places that has frequent half price sales? The trick is you double your prices and then you can have a 50% sale. Some shmucks come in and actually pay double. I've been called a lot of things, but not a shmuck. Remember my lawyer said write a check? Well I told him that if I wrote her a check it would be instead of the one he was getting. First rule, apply a little incentive.

I also said that I wanted her legal bills and would go through them line by line with challenges. I asked for details on her hourly rate, the delay in producing the bills, and why the fees weren't provided in monthly statements. I also compared the relative amount of work done by her vs. my side and wanted to know why the ratio of fees was not commensurate with work output. This is a very insidious technique. A lawyer can dump or push work to the opposing party. More details on that technique in a future post.

How can you get this info? Well it is private until a motion for fees is made, then they must be justified to the proposed payer. I'm not sure how many of these embarrassing questions had to be asked to the judge, but enough for him to declare her fees too high and to cut them in half.

When the lawyers went in circles for 6 months and I came in Pro Se and asked to have my employer held liable since they provided the same info and pointed out that opposition knew that since she subpoenaed them and did not share her discovery as required, the judge was impressed. Wow, am I good or what? Nah, I just care, I spent the time, I learned arithmetic and reading at the same early age as anyone else in a public school. The hardest thing was trying to get over the frustration of dealing with a rigged system. I thank my readers for help with that. I have to believe that the judge understood that she had wasted the court's time and padded her bill.

So why should I waste any energy in reducing her fees? Well first, they would impact my son. I couldn't give a shit about my wife now, but being practical, her trouble becomes my son's trouble and that I care about greatly. Secondly, I was originally going to get nailed for half her bill (and all of mine).

Well I didn't want to pay any fees, but the judge always allocates fees to the higher wage earner regardless of who hired the lawyer. Since he always does this, going to Phase III trial would only piss him off and cost me more money. This is a whole other issue that I have in a draft post. But I did get less than half the bill as originally proposed.

Tax deductible, how can that be? Alimony is tax deductible to the payer and taxable to the payee. Having made a good argument that I had done nothing to delay the case, then this paying of the opposition lawyer's fees becomes a form of spousal support. The separation agreement language must clearly spell out that it is spousal support and made part of the court order. If it is discussed but not part of the court order, you loose the deduction.

Arithmetic, how the hell can you screw up arithmetic that bad? Feel free to adapt this example as incentive for your children to study their math. Here's how, first do lots of rapid horse trading, scribbling on your legal pad, forget to copy down a change, and use Excel as a word processor without formulas. Yet another topic I can go into detail with. How do I know that no formulas were used? Because I had him give me the .xls file.

I've made good money during my career, but never over $40,000 per month. Not even close! OK, let's say this is a culmination of all the financial negotiation since Jan, $40K for 3 or 4 months work, still not too shabby. If you can afford to pass up that kind of money go ahead, I can't.

Moral of the story: Trust your lawyer and you'll pay twice. (jqism)

My Lawyer Sends me on Goose Chase

Many people my age and younger have grown comfortable with online banking. I've done it so long, I've forgotten how to pay bills any other way.

From a very practical point, as you come under the financial pressure that is inevitable with a divorce, the convenience and quick turn around of online banking almost becomes a necessity.

I have been arguing for release of my separate assets for months. Last month I received a court order for partial release of my separate funds. My lawyer went out of town and let it sit, then he deposited my funds into his escrow account. He claims he can not do an electric transfer out of his account.

He would not release any of my funds to me until I provided him with individual bills. I gathered 20 creditors bills, scanned them and sent the PDF file to him. Then he wrote individual checks for each creditor to that creditor.

Now if creditors were current, I'd simply buy 20 stamps, lick all those envelopes and mail them. You may guess that when you are 3 months behind that the last thing a creditor wants to hear is "the check is in the mail". It got so bad that when I tried to ask what to do with the checks, they said "give us a card number or bank routing number", before I could finish the question.

Mailing takes 10 days to process, banks take 3 days to process, payment centers take 1 day, and online banking is less than a day.

What's the rush? I had recieved shut off notices for phone, water, electricity all within 5 days. Yeah, he waited long enough. So I had to pay at payment centers, which these days is a nice word for "check cashing" establishments, a kin to a pawn shop.

The number of creditors who each used different payment centers meant that I would be running around the downtown area with an envelope full of checks, some for thousands of dollars, paying these bills. As any big metropolitan area, there are crime elements, which I'm used to since I worked in a downtown University for 19 years. But I was never dumb enough to be standing in line at these legalized loan sharking establishments with their desperate clients to pay bills. I've gone to the large banks on the square or the financial avenue, where you can reach every major institution by walking 100 feet between each towering building. Each with their courteous and numerous security people visible.

These emergency payment centers on the other hand are small hole in the walls located on side streets and alleys, next to warehouses or garages, where desperate people cram in like sardines to stand in line behind the personnel who are behind thick bullet proof glass, without any security any where to be seen inside or outside.

It was rather depressing to see that these desperate people who could least afford it were being charged 2-3% to cash a payroll check and upwards of 30% interest on a payday loan.

So off I went 40 blocks in the east/west direction, and 10 avenues in the north/south direction (if you know my town well, ask via email and I'll give you the intersections). Four hours later, my envelope was nearly empty, my feet were sore, and I knew why I've been doing online banking. I only had one incident, a potential pick pocket, at one of the payment centers. I've had several pick pocket attempts, only the first one was successful.

Then I sat down to a nice dinner, rested my weary feet before I went home. My son was not able to reach me and had talked his mother to coming over to my home so he could say good night as we have done every night for the last two years by telephone as ordered by the court. Why, I wondered was he unable to get through? Because my phone was already disconnected. Guess today was one day too late. Great, now I have to fix that.

Thank God, for my wonderful son, who had to say Good Night to Daddy.

And a big Fuck You to my wife and her lawyer who have been screwing me for two years and a Special Fuck You to my own asshole pussy lawyer who sent me on this unnecessary goose chase.

Laugh now pussy, laugh it up good, I will laugh last.

So that was my March 30th, second anniversary of my son's kidnapping. Hopefully 2008 will be the year of normalization.